Bro, Ajay Devgn’s “Drishyam 3“—or “Drishyam: The Conclusion“—is finally set to release on October 2nd.
But it’s been 11 years since the first part came out, and nearly four years since Drishyam 2.
So, a recap of parts 1 and 2 is definitely warranted before watching Drishyam 3. You don’t need to rewatch both parts; just read this article before heading to the cinema for Drishyam 3.
Sounds good?
I’m Ayush. Grab some snacks, popcorn, or whatever you have handy.
Let’s spill the binge!
Drishyam 1: How Vijay Salgaonkar Covered Up Sam’s Murder
So, bro, the story begins with Vijay Salgaonkar, a resident of Goa. He isn’t highly educated, but he is such a movie buff that he has gained much of his worldly knowledge from watching films.
Vijay runs his own cable TV business. His family consists of his wife, Nandini, and two daughters, Anju and Anu.
The family leads a perfectly normal life. Then, Anju wants to attend a school camp. Initially, Vijay flatly refuses, but she is his daughter—and what father would want to see his daughter unhappy?—so he eventually gives her permission to go.
It is there that Anju meets Sam Deshmukh.
Sam is no ordinary boy; he is the only son of Goa’s Inspector General (IG), Meera Deshmukh.
During the camp, Sam secretly records a nude video of Anju and subsequently begins blackmailing her using that very video.
Sam wants to have a sexual relationship with Anju.
Frightened, Anju tells her mother, Nandani, about the situation, but the matter does not end there.
Sam shows up at Anju’s house at night; Nandani asks him—pleads with him, really—to delete the video and leave her daughter alone.
However, Sam counters by making the same sordid demand for Nandani. Anju cannot tolerate this; she strikes out with an iron rod, intending to smash the phone Sam is holding.
But the blow lands on Sam’s head instead of the phone, and he dies on the spot.
This was not a premeditated murder; Anju had not planned to kill Sam. Naturally, however, both mother and daughter are left in a state of sheer panic after the incident.
Nandani and Anju bury Sam’s body in a manure pit behind the house, but a major complication arises: the younger daughter, Anu, witnesses the entire event.
The next day, Vijay returns home, and Nandani tells him the whole story; this is the moment Vijay Salgaonkar transforms into the Vijay Salgaonkar we know. He first attends to his family’s needs, then systematically considers all the pieces of evidence:
- Sam’s phone
- Sam’s car
- Sam’s last known location
- Sam’s connection to Anju
And, most importantly, his own mother is a high-ranking police officer.
Vijay realizes that the police will soon arrive at his home. So, he doesn’t just try to hide the evidence; he constructs an entirely different narrative for the police to believe.
The 2nd of October Master Plan
He fabricates a day that never actually happened—giving rise to that legendary “2nd of October.”
Vijay concocts a story for his family: on October 2nd, they all went to Panaji. There, they attended a “satsang”, ate “pav bhaji”, watched a movie, spent the night out, and returned home on October 3rd.
However, having four people tell the same lie isn’t enough. The police could question the hotel staff or the restaurant owners; they could check bus tickets or even movie tickets.
That is why Vijay doesn’t just alter his family’s memories; he manipulates the memories of others as well.
He visits those locations himself first, meets the people there, and secures items like tickets and bills. Only later does he take his family to those same places.
Consequently, when the police question various people about whether Vijay had visited with his family, the witnesses aren’t lying. They genuinely “had” seen Vijay and his family there; they simply misremembered the date.
This was the crux of Vijay’s entire strategy. He didn’t fabricate witnesses; instead, he planted false memories in the minds of the genuine witnesses.
Meanwhile, Vijay also disposes of Sam’s car. However, Sub-Inspector Gaitonde spots him while he is moving the vehicle—and Gaitonde and Vijay already have a history of bad blood.
With Sam missing, his mother, Meera Deshmukh, personally takes charge of the case. She quickly uncovers the connection between Anju and Sam.
Vijay and his entire family are interrogated separately. Yet, Vijay has coached them so thoroughly—covering details like what they ate, where they went, and the exact times of their departure and return—that their answers are virtually identical.
And then, the outside witnesses also corroborate the same story.
Meera realizes something is fishy. She also understands that Vijay has somehow manipulated the entire timeline. However, realizing the truth and proving it are two very different things.
Subsequently, the police ramp up the pressure. Vijay, Nandini, and even their children are detained at the station. Gaitonde subjects them to brutal beatings.
And finally, when little Anu is threatened and beaten—yes, that devil Gaitonde, in human guise, actually raises his hand against that little child—she breaks down and reveals to the police that Sam had been buried in the pit behind the house.
At this point, it starts to look like Vijay is in for serious trouble.
The police arrive at the house with the entire family. A pit is dug, but Sam’s body is not found inside; instead, the carcass of a dead dog is unearthed, as Vijay had already removed Sam’s body from the spot long before.
Consequently, the situation backfires on the police. News of the assault on a young girl and the family spreads.
Public sentiment turns against Gaitonde; in fact, the community collectively turns on him and beats him severely. Gaitonde is suspended.
Meera, too, is eventually forced to step down from her position. Yet, she and her husband, Mahesh, remain convinced that something has happened to their son.
Towards the end of the film, they meet Vijay. He does not explicitly confess to everything, but he makes it clear that he simply did whatever was necessary to protect his family.
Where Did Vijay Hide Sam’s Body?
By this point, only one question was on the audience’s mind: okay, Sam was dead and Vijay had removed the body from the pit, but where did the body actually go?
And then, the film reveals its biggest twist.
Vijay had buried Sam’s body right inside the local police station while it was under construction. In other words, the very police officers who were searching all over Goa for Sam’s body were walking over his grave every single day. And that is where the first part of Drishyam concludes.
However, Vijay made one mistake. He had believed that no one saw him burying Sam’s body that night. In reality, someone “did” see him, and it is this very person who sets the entire chain of events in motion again in Drishyam 2.
Drishyam 2: A New Threat Emerges
The story has now moved forward by seven years. Vijay’s life has changed significantly; while he still runs his cable business, he has also become the owner of a cinema hall and dreams of producing a film himself. To this end, he is working on a script with the writer Murad Ali.
From the outside, it appears that the Salgaonkar family has moved past that old incident. Inside the home, however, the situation is entirely different.
Nandini still lives in fear. Outsiders continue to gossip about their family, and Anju has been the most deeply affected by the events of that night and the subsequent police brutality; she suffers from severe mental trauma and experiences seizures.
In short, while Vijay managed to save his family from prison, he could not erase that night from their lives.
The story then introduces us to a man named David. On that fateful night in the first film—after Vijay Salgaonkar had buried Sam’s body and was leaving the police station—David had spotted him there.
At the time, David was fleeing the police after committing a crime himself. He was soon arrested and spent seven years in prison, which is why his name never surfaced during the events of the first film; however, he has now been released.
From neighborhood gossip, he finds out that the police are looking for solid proof to arrest Vijay Salgaonkar, and whoever brings solid proof will get 5 lakh rupees.
Seeing Vijay, David remembers that night when he was running from the police and saw a man with a shovel (Phawra) at 3 AM coming out of the under-construction police station. Realizing that this could be the evidence the police were looking for, David demands ₹25 lakh instead of ₹5 lakh.
For the first time, the police have a witness who could potentially put Vijay behind bars.
This time, the investigation is being led by IG Tarun Ahlawat, played by Akshaye Khanna.
The film also reveals that Tarun Ahlawat is an old friend of Meera.
Tarun had been keeping a close watch on Vijay’s family for months. It turns out that even Vijay’s neighbors, Jenny and Shiv, were actually undercover police officers—what a twist!
Nandini thought Jenny was her friend and gradually began to share her problems with her. However, she made a grave mistake one day: she revealed to Jenny that Sam had actually died at Anju’s hands. What Nandini doesn’t know is that Jenny is recording the entire conversation.
Now, the police possessed two very strong pieces of evidence:
First, David’s statement;
And second, the recording of Nandini’s conversation.
The Body Is Found, But Vijay Has Another Plan
Acting on information provided by David, the police excavate the site of the old police station, and this time, they actually unearth a human skeleton.
Just imagine what a massive shock this must have been for Vijay. The police had reached the very spot he had considered the safest grave in the world for the past seven years.
Meera and Mahesh return, and the family is brought in for questioning once again.
Gaitonde also returns to duty and begins torturing Vijay’s family—much like he did in Part 1.
Then, as Anju’s condition begins to deteriorate and the police possess evidence, Vijay surrenders to save his daughter, declaring:
That he was the one who killed Sam.
And that his family had no involvement in it.
Then Vijay gets arrested, and for the first time, it seems as though he has finally given up—that it is all over. But if Vijay Salgaonkar were to surrender so easily, Drishyam 2 would never have been made.
The police believe they have finally caught Vijay. But then, Murad Ali steps forward—the very writer with whom Vijay had been collaborating on a film script for years.
Murad reveals that Vijay had narrated a crime story to him long ago—a story that was even developed into a book. Crucially, the events in that story mirror the very confession Vijay had just made to the police.
Vijay’s version of events now suggests that the police simply took the story he had written and used it as the basis to build their case against him. Consequently, his confession no longer stands as irrefutable evidence on its own.
But the police still hold the trump card: the DNA test of the body found beneath the police station. If the DNA matches, it’s game over for Vijay.
Then the report arrives, and the DNA does not match Sam’s.
It is at this point that we realize Vijay hadn’t just been living his life for the past seven years; he had been preparing for this very day. He had always known that, sooner or later, someone might reach the spot beneath the police station.
That is why Vijay had a backup plan ready.
Vijay had identified the body of a young man whose age and circumstances of death closely resembled Sam’s. He then devised a plan to retrieve it.
He befriended a worker there, exhumed the skeleton when the time was right, and gradually struck up a friendship with the security guard at the morgue where Sam’s body would likely be brought for examination.
Vijay kept the security guard hopeful with promises of getting him work in films. Why? Because he knew that if Sam’s body were ever recovered from beneath the police station, the next stop would be that very morgue—and that is exactly what happened.
When the body found beneath the police station arrived for forensic analysis, Vijay seized the opportunity to swap it with the other body he had prepared in advance.
The DNA test was conducted on this second body.
Consequently, the report stated that it was not Sam. The crucial evidence the police had obtained had vanished once again. Yet, Vijay did not stop there.
He arranged for the final rites of the real Sam’s remains and ensured the ashes reached his parents, Meera and Mahesh.
In other words, Vijay had not only saved his family once again but also gave Sam’s parents the chance to perform their son’s last rites.
Where Drishyam 2 Leaves Us
Mahesh realizes that there is no end to this battle. As long as Vijay remains free, he will continue doing whatever it takes to protect his family, while Mahesh and Meera will continue looking for a way to prove the truth. Tarun, too, understands the bigger problem.
Although Vijay is out of jail, he is not truly free; he will spend the rest of his life living in fear of the police’s next move. A new witness could emerge at any moment, or fresh evidence might surface. A family member could crack under pressure, or a single minor slip-up could bring the whole game crashing down.
At the end of Drishyam 2, Vijay legally escapes once again, as Sam’s murder cannot be proven.
The police are barred from taking further action against the Salgaonkar family. Yet, the story does not end there, for the situation is vastly different from the first installment. At the end of the first film, only Vijay knew the full truth. By the second film, however, Meera, Mahesh, Tarun, and the police all know; the villagers harbor suspicions, and we, the audience, know it too.
Everyone is more or less aware of what transpired; the only hurdle is that no one can prove it in court. And this is precisely where Drishyam: The Conclusion will pick up.
Reports suggest that Drishyam 3 is quite different from the Malayalam version of Drishyam 3. We will find out just how different it is on October 2nd.
However, the Malayalam Drishyam 3 received a mixed response and was not as well-received as its first two installments.
Let’s hope the same doesn’t happen with this one.